2024 Week 11 Playoff Prognostication

[FUBeAR]

The Pioneer does send a team to the playoffs. Perhaps your analysis is suggesting (might suggest) this should be a more-than-one-bid league. That is why they should not be "removed". Ivies should also not be removed, because this provides a comparison point, especially for the few teams that may have played an Ivy and might be in playoff consideration.

My point here is that as a scientist, we deal with data sets and there are outliers that we maybe should (or should not) ignore. For example, and there is no political agenda here (so please don't turn it into one), the COVID vaccine has a measured rate of inflammatory heart disease of 2.3 in 100,000 people vaccinated (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8755376/). Just like COVID infection has a measured rate of heart inflammation approximately 7 times that of those vaccinated (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals...22.951314/full). That said, that is ~15 in 100,000 people. My point: significance is in the eye of the beholder, and just because less than 0.002% show heart inflammation after vaccination, does not mean that it does not matter. Just like one could also say that 0.002% is much lower than the mortality rate for COVID, which some might also argue is low enough to matter or not matter. It is simply perspective and interpretation of data. Applying this to football, that is why considering only the top 7.75% of teams in any category is perhaps not the most rigorous way to consider the data.


Got a kick out of this! I think this might be able to be done via a Google Sheet (I do this with a few columns of data for other things, but would have to play around with 47 columns, or whatever you said were the number of stats).


Cherry-picking was perhaps not the best way to describe it; however, without including ALL data, it will always have a level of bias that including all data would not. If you add in "weighting", that would also introduce bias. Heck, then one might as well use SOS.


The objective data has yet to determine this; however, since I do believe that strength of opponents (and thus schedule) differs interconference and can even have a moderate-to-great disparity intraconference, some teams might make higher appearances in statistical items, such that one might have at least a little WTF response. Is it possible that for NDSU, SDSU, MTST, USD, UCD, etc, that while consensus is that they are at the top, essentially averaging out all the statistical categories might not necessarily reflect that...and it might even favor those good teams in a perhaps not so good conference (but without SOS, there would be no such thing as a not so good conference, right?). At this point, it is speculative, nothing more.


I appreciate that. Top 10 was an arbitrary cutoff, but meaningful? This remains to be seen. I do agree that there appears to be at least a little more than coincidence to this observation.

Um…OK …

A few BRIEF comments…

* This thread is about Playoff Prognostication - we know the PFL is only getting an AutoBid and that Team won’t be seeded. No need to DISCUSS. The Ivies ain’t gonna participate; no need to DISCUSS. The data from PFL & Ivies IS included, but no DISCUSSION is needed about those Teams. As SNL’s Rev. Jackson would say - “The point is MOOT.”

* Now FUBeAR’s heart is hurting. Shouldn’t have gotten that 1 jab.

* FUBeAR is pretty good on Excel; not so much on Sheets for iPad … can’t figger out how to “Paste Special” to ‘convert’ formulas to JUST their values. Really need that. More below…

* Limiting analysis of data sets for manageability is a good thing, especially for OCD-afflicted types. More below…

* Weighting of the 47 stats the NCAA publishes would de-goofify them. One could use that to bias the output OR to add in the ‘bias’ of knowing something about Football. Only reason FUBeAR didn’t do it is cuz he didn’t feel like doing it. With 47 categories, the goofiness is diluted … so juice not worth squeezing, IFBO

* Top 10 significance? Not a David Letterman fan, huh? OK…the Committee released their Top 10 and there’s also the Casey Kasem paradigm.

So…since FUBeAR is OCD and your reply data-shamed him…so, he did it … all 47 categories / all 123 Teams - 141 copy /pastes, ~6,000 rows of data…meticulous assignment of points 123 to 1 … and since the NCAA’s site uses “-“ for ties instead of a value … that part sucked… Anyway, sure the outcome changed some, but, in the main, your suspicion was unfounded…

…Top Teams are still Top Teams…

NOW, LEAVE FUBeAR ALONE - BRAIN IS REALLY TIRED!!

	ALL TEAMS / ALL 47 CATEGORIES						Top 10 Teams / ALL 47 CATEGORIES
Rank	Team	Points				Rank	Team	Points
1	Butler	4583				1	Mercer	141
2	South Dakota	4507				2	North Dakota St.	138
3	North Dakota St.	4453				3	Montana St.	124
4	SFA	4390				4	South Dakota	121
5	South Dakota St.	4340				5	Dayton	99
6	Montana St.	4334				6	South Dakota St.	97
7	Mercer	4239				7	Harvard	96
8	Richmond	4213				8	Butler	86
9	Harvard	4093				9	Eastern Wash.	79
10	Delaware	4088				10	SFA	74
11	UC Davis	3952				10	UIW	74
12	Jackson St.	3889				12	Columbia	71
13	UIW	3866				12	Tarleton St.	71
14	Northern Ariz.	3765				14	UC Davis	65
15	N.C. Central	3727				15	Missouri St.	55
16	North Dakota	3682				16	Youngstown St.	53
17	Missouri St.	3664				17	Grambling	50
18	South Carolina St.	3635				17	Nicholls	50
19	Tarleton St.	3626				19	Northern Colo.	47
20	Dartmouth	3596				20	Idaho St.	46
21	UT Martin	3586				21	Lehigh	43
22	Montana	3566				22	Alabama St.	42
23	Alabama St.	3547				22	Davidson	42
24	Stony Brook	3527				24	Abilene Christian	41
25	Hampton	3514				25	Southeastern La.	40
26	Yale	3505				26	Central Conn. St.	39
27	Lehigh	3477				26	Jackson St.	39
28	Southeastern La.	3452				26	Tennessee Tech	39
29	Dayton	3451				29	Dartmouth	38
30	Davidson	3438				29	Montana	38
31	Duquesne	3405				29	Richmond	38
32	Southeast Mo. St.	3392				32	N.C. Central	37
33	The Citadel	3376				33	Penn	36
34	New Hampshire	3370				33	South Carolina St.	36
35	Morgan St.	3365				33	Stony Brook	36
36	ETSU	3321				36	Idaho	35
37	San Diego	3319				37	Western Caro.	34
38	Penn	3314				38	Monmouth	33
39	Lafayette	3313				38	Villanova	33
40	Columbia	3288				40	Chattanooga	32
41	Holy Cross	3284				40	Samford	32
42	William & Mary	3274				40	Yale	32
43	Drake	3273				43	Duquesne	31
44	Tennessee St.	3268				43	Northern Ariz.	31
45	Robert Morris	3267				45	Morgan St.	30
46	Villanova	3242				45	Robert Morris	30
47	Chattanooga	3238				45	Southern U.	30
48	Tennessee Tech	3236				48	McNeese	29
49	Abilene Christian	3218				48	The Citadel	29
50	Georgetown	3185				50	Merrimack	28
51	Illinois St.	3176				50	Morehead St.	28
52	Idaho	3175				52	Delaware	27
53	Monmouth	3121				52	Georgetown	27
54	Presbyterian	3118				52	San Diego	27
55	Central Ark.	3115				55	ETSU	26
56	Merrimack	3106				55	UT Martin	26
57	Alabama A&M	3050				57	Princeton	25
58	Eastern Wash.	3045				57	Saint Francis	25
59	Maine	3033				57	Southern Utah	25
60	Grambling	3019				60	Drake	24
61	Idaho St.	3003				60	Tennessee St.	24
62	Nicholls	2997				62	Cornell	23
63	Weber St.	2971				62	Indiana St.	23
64	Samford	2962				62	Wagner	23
65	Rhode Island	2952				65	Northwestern St.	20
66	Central Conn. St.	2918				65	Rhode Island	20
67	Gardner-Webb	2915				65	Southern Ill.	20
68	Indiana St.	2915				68	Bethune-Cookman	19
69	Morehead St.	2910				68	Gardner-Webb	19
70	North Ala.	2910				68	Valparaiso	19
71	Elon	2869				71	North Dakota	18
72	Brown	2863				72	Charleston So.	17
73	Southern Utah	2858				72	Furman	17
74	Sacramento St.	2824				72	Weber St.	17
75	LIU	2818				72	William & Mary	17
76	Cornell	2793				76	Sacred Heart	16
77	Wofford	2791				76	VMI	16
78	Eastern Ky.	2781				78	Prairie View	15
79	Lamar University	2781				78	Presbyterian	15
80	Southern U.	2752				78	Southeast Mo. St.	15
81	Howard	2745				81	Alabama A&M	14
82	Florida A&M	2729				81	Bucknell	14
83	Bucknell	2720				81	Norfolk St.	14
84	Western Caro.	2700				84	UNI	13
85	Austin Peay	2690				85	Alcorn	12
86	Wagner	2669				85	Eastern Ill.	12
87	McNeese	2653				85	Fordham	12
88	Sacred Heart	2625				85	Lamar University	12
89	Towson	2620				85	Wofford	12
90	Alcorn	2587				90	Hampton	11
91	Norfolk St.	2560				90	Sacramento St.	11
92	Saint Francis	2554				92	Delaware St.	10
93	Texas Southern	2549				92	Florida A&M	10
94	Cal Poly	2524				92	Holy Cross	10
95	Youngstown St.	2485				92	Howard	10
96	Prairie View	2481				92	Illinois St.	10
97	Fordham	2436				92	LIU	10
98	Western Ill.	2436				92	North Ala.	10
99	Portland St.	2435				92	UAlbany	10
100	UAlbany	2397				92	Western Ill.	10
101	Valparaiso	2362				101	Colgate	9
102	Campbell	2316				102	New Hampshire	8
103	Southern Ill.	2311				102	Towson	8
104	Charleston So.	2277				104	Ark.-Pine Bluff	7
105	Colgate	2244				104	Central Ark.	7
106	Stetson	2206				106	Elon	5
107	VMI	2186				106	Maine	5
108	Eastern Ill.	2184				106	Marist	5
109	Furman	2184				106	Murray St.	5
110	Princeton	2097				106	Portland St.	5
111	UNI	2063				111	Cal Poly	4
112	Bethune-Cookman	2052				111	Lafayette	4
113	Ark.-Pine Bluff	2048				111	Texas Southern	4
114	Northern Colo.	1948				114	Stetson	2
115	Bryant	1915				115	Utah Tech	1
116	Murray St.	1912
117	Marist	1832
118	Delaware St.	1828
119	N.C. A&T	1782
120	Utah Tech	1719
121	Houston Christian	1627
122	Northwestern St.	1536
123	Mississippi Val.	1322